


echoes

by curiositykilled



Series: tumblr prompts [11]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Emotional Baggage, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Season/Series 06, Soul Bond, past allura/lotor - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-23
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2019-05-27 09:39:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15021842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/curiositykilled/pseuds/curiositykilled
Summary: After everything, they meet each other in the middle.





	echoes

                  She finds him in an old familiar spot. He leans against the Black Lion’s massive paw, head tilted back so the sunlight falls golden over his closed eyes. His hair glitters like starlight with the sun catching on the tips, and though this body is just as alive and real as it was before he inhabited it, there’s something about him that seems not quite real, not quite here. It sends a clench of worry, vicelike, around her heart.

                  Shiro smiles at her as he opens his eyes. She half expects to see the Black Lion looking at her through him, but no, this is just Shiro – the real Shiro at last.

                  “Hey, Princess,” he greets.

                  It doesn’t matter how many hundreds have called her by the title – every time it comes from his mouth, it sends a thrill through her spine down to her toes.

                  “Hello,” she greets, not bothering to stifle her smile. “How are you feeling?”

                  She’s learned not to take for granted the chance to smile, to seize those flickers of happiness and relish them.

                  Shiro tilts his head, considering. He’s never been rash, but his time in the astral plane seems to have left him newly thoughtful, and it doesn’t surprise her that he takes a moment before answering. She does wonder, though, how much is from his connection to the lion. To have been held in its essence for so long surely left more of a mark than just his newly pale hair. She knows he left more of an imprint in the brief time she held his soul.

                  “Tired,” he decides, “but – content.”

                  “It will take some time to adjust,” Allura says. “There’s no need to push yourself when you should be resting.”

                  Shiro snorts, wrinkling his nose at the suggestion. It immediately brings him back to corporeality, grounds him in this body and plane. She can feel the corners of her lips curl up in a little smile, more subdued than the first.

                  “And don’t try to turn that on me,” she says, teasing. “You have certainly been through worse this time.”

                  It’s said in jest, but Shiro’s expression turns somber instead. It startles Allura, enough that she can’t think of a way to backtrack. She hadn’t expected that to be a point of contention.

                  “I’m sorry,” he says.

                  She freezes, lips parted around words that die a noiseless death. Of all he could have said, _that_ hadn’t entered her mind as a possibility.

                  “Whatever for?” she asks, baffled.

                  “All of it,” Shiro blurts out before sighing, rubbing a hand against the back of his skull. It’s a familiar gesture, though it’s been a long while since she last saw it. “That’s not – I know, that doesn’t mean anything.”

                  “Shiro,” she interrupts, “you’ve been gone for nearly two years now – what in the world could you apologize for? And don’t you dare say leaving. We both know you had no say in that.”

                  She refuses to say ‘dying.’ The word is too definite, too heavy to drop into conversation even now. He drops his hand, brows furrowing in frustration now.

                  “Please, Allura – let me,” he starts, and she subsides but only barely.

                  It’s ridiculous to think he of either of them could possibly have something to apologize for. It takes a moment for him to find the words, and he seems to struggle with them even as he begins to speak. He doesn’t meet her eyes, instead focusing on the ground some distance away. His brow remains furrowed, a tight frown.

                  “Time was – was different, there,” he explains haltingly. “I wasn’t with you guys – but I could see…and hear. And I have _his_ memories, now.”

                  “Oh, Shiro,” Allura says. She’s hit with a wash of both sympathy and affection for him; how very like him to shoulder this blame. “I know he wasn’t you. Of course I don’t hold any of that against you.”

                  The answer doesn’t seem to reassure him; his jaw tightens a little bit, and though he lifts his gaze, it’s to the distant horizon and not towards her. When he does finally look to her, it’s with a pinch in his brow.

                  “But it was,” he insists, low. “For you, I mean. For you, it was me – my face, my voice – me. And I’m sorry that you went through that.”

                  She doesn’t know what to say to that. She can still feel the hollow place in her chest where the hurt, the betrayal, has knotted up under her ribs these past two years. They had lost Shiro and they had gotten him back, but everything was wrong. Her closest friend her – her _something_ , her _almost_ – was not the man she’d known. She knows, now, why that was. She holds no grudge against Shiro for it, of course – but the hurt still lingers like an out-of-sync echo of her heartbeat.

                  “And I’m sorry about Lotor,” Shiro continues quietly. “I know – I know how much he means to you.”

                  She realizes, with a jolt, that he does. She’d held his soul far more briefly than the Black Lion had, but it had still been nestled next to hers long enough to feel what she felt. She can still feel it, now, if she thinks hard. A second heartbeat, second feelings. Pain echoes through that faint bond now, but it’s not of the physical sort. It’s pain for her.

                  She sighs and slumps back against the lion’s claws beside him. The sun’s halfway to the horizon now, and soon enough, it’ll be evening. The other paladins will undoubtedly come looking for them once they return from their excursion to the market, and she will straighten her shoulders and take on her role once more. Regret, grief – they will be pushed neatly to the side. There isn’t room for them here, not when she needs to be strong for the rest of them.

                  But for right now, she doesn’t have to be. Lying to Shiro about it would serve no purpose: he’s seen her soul, heard the reverberations of her own pain and anguish, just as she has seen his. There is nothing left to hide.

                  “I thought he loved me,” she admits. “I – I loved him.”

                  It had all seemed…not easy – but simple, before. They had Voltron and they would use it to protect the innocent and vanquish Zarkon and then – and then what? Somehow, she’d never found an answer to that.

                  Then, Lotor came, and she did. It was half-formed, mere notions in the back of her mind. They would vanquish Haggar and then, together, guide the universe to a new, more peaceful place. The last remaining Alteans together ushering in a new age. It had seemed perfect. It had died screaming with Lotor in the rift.

                  Her love hadn’t _._ It’s something she can hardly admit to herself, much less aloud. The crimes Lotor has committed against her, her team, her people – the universe itself – are unforgiveable. He was as much a monster as his father. How, _how_ could she still feel for a creature like that? She shouldn’t be able to, and yet, she does.

                  “I was so blind,” she says, suddenly angry – at herself, at Lotor, at the universe. “So – so stupid! I wanted to believe him, wanted everything he had to offer and I ignored what I should have seen.”

                  She swipes at the tears now starting. She can’t tell if they’re tears of anger or grief for what was lost.

                  “I did everything he wanted me to do,” she continues. “I swore to be wary, to keep my guard up, and then I followed his lead like a child. I was so _stupid._ ”

                  “Allura.”

                  His hand settles on her shoulder, warm but gentle. It’s just enough weight to pull her attention to him, to the frown that’s pulled his eyebrows into a furrow. She rubs at her nose and brushes away the teardrops clinging to her eyelashes.

                  “Allura, please, listen to me,” he says. “You couldn’t have known. There was so much going on – so much at stake. You did what you felt was right – and giving him a second chance just proves that you’re a good person.”

                  She scoffs, disparaging.

                  “A good person isn’t much when it comes to nearly destroying the universe,” she retorts.

                  “No,” Shiro says, “it’s everything.”

                  She glances at him sideways, but he doesn’t falter in the face of her skepticism.

                  “Allura you being a good person is why we’re here now – why the universe is still here,” he says. “Why I’m still here.”

                  The last is said more softly, as if he didn’t quite mean to let it slip out. She looks away, blinking back tears.

                  She knows, of course. She felt it just as much as he did when she lifted his soul from the Black Lion’s careful guard and carried it to his new body. It’s the reason why she tried to pretend she hadn’t felt anything at all.

                  A seed planted long ago, that had only just begun to bud when he disappeared. They’d never spoken of it, but it had been shared, suggested, in late night talks and gentle looks. And then, he came back and it was brushed away like it had never taken root in the first place.

                  Admitting it would mean admitting all of it – that she still stung from the dismissal of that gentle hope and that her heart still panged with the loss of all that Lotor had offered. None of it was Shiro’s fault, none of it was anything he deserved to deal with – but he was right. It was still there. It still nuanced her own actions.

                  “I’m sorry,” she says. She doesn’t know what she’s apologizing for except for everything – this whole mess. “When did everything get so muddled?”

                  “Well,” Shiro says, a little teasing, a little thoughtful, “an argument could be made for about ten thousand years ago…”

                  Despite herself, she snorts in laughter. He’s grinning, something like delight in his eyes at her amusement. Her heart gives another little clench, and she bites her lip. She looks away to steel herself.

                  “Shiro…I – I can’t trust my own judgment right now,” she admits. “Trusting Lotor, not realizing you were…not you – I just…”

                  She trails off, unsure how to even finish. She doesn’t need to.

                  “It’s okay,” Shiro says. “I’m not – I’m not back all the way as is, and I would never ask you to wait for me. We both need time. And… as long as we can still be friends, I’ll be happy. I don’t need more.”

                  She smiles a little, bittersweet. His voice and face are so sincere; she has no doubt he means what he says, and she can’t express in words how much it means to her that he does. She reaches out, gently tilting his head down to press a kiss to his forehead. He goes willingly, pliant and trusting under her hand. He’s smiling a little when she lets him go, bemusement and contentment in his eyes.

                  She turns back to the horizon, towards the slowly setting sun. This time, she lets herself lean a little towards him until their shoulders bump together. He leans back, gentle weight pressing against her.

                  “Time,” she echoes.

                  So much has happened in these past few years – fighting the war, losing friends, gaining allies, discovering whole possibilities she never imagined existed. What could happen in the next few? Where might they end up?

                  Shiro’s head comes to rest against her shoulder, and she feels a gentle whisper of fatigue through that quiet bond. She wills herself to respond with hope, with the gilded susurrus she felt when he opened his eyes.

                  “Yes,” she says softly, “I think we can do that.”

 

                 

                 

 


End file.
